BlogSmall business, Marketing, Promotion and Web Design

Various federal commissions are keeping tabs on companies in order to prevent them from turning into monopolies. But the onerous “web crowd” might overpower them with ease by creating de facto monopolies.

Starting with my own area of expertise – web site creation. If your web site isn’t on Google’s first couple of pages for your search terms – you’re effectively off the market. Why? Because no matter what FTC would do, we, the people, will “google it” first. Google didn’t just buy those 80% of search market – we handed it to them on our own.

If your video isn’t on YouTube – there’s hardly any substitute on that. Recent TechCrunch post on percentage shares of US video streams confirms that. I don’t remember YouTube stalking me with a bat to make me use their services.

Next – social networking. While MySpace/Facebook/Ning leave some room for competition, Twitter is the only game in town so far and so are Flickr, Last.fm and LinkedIn (to a point).

It’s not that these companies are brutal in extinguishing their competition, something Microsoft did to Netscape back in the old age of browser wars. Also, there are alternatives -  technically speaking. But there is no real competition in terms of services’ social population and  amount of interaction one would encounter. Heck, the reason Twitter crumbles every now and then because there is no competition, so there is no other place to tweet. It’s just that after we played with most social web sites out there, we tend to come back to one or two most populated, since being where the social action occurs is the whole point of exercise.

Well, if you have followed my twitter you already know I am a married man now (applause, congratulations; gifts accepted too!). It happened in Vegas on November 27. Sorry for not posting for such a long time.

The trip was fun (I have never been to Vegas before) and it was a very interesting learning experience. Not many people would argue that Vegas knows how to make money. So it was very interesting to watch how to make money off the leisure activities in the time of world financial crisis.

Everything is over-blinged. I mean – we all know that extra bling don’t hurt, but boy – Vegas is one big bling all by itself. One thing that I found very amusing – all life happens in casinos. Food, shows, shops, restrooms – everything is in casino. In fact I was surprised there was a wall between McDonald’s and a casino. My thought was – why not create a McDonald’s casino – you throw in some money, pull lever or hit the Spin the Mac button – BLING! – and Chicken McNuggets fall down the tray. Or fries if you aren’t so lucky. Or, if you are lucky enough – a cheeseburger with soda. Or, as a jackpot – a Big Mac, extra fries and soda. Imagine the possibilities!

Out of all the annoyances – if you want to do anything you will have to pass through casino. Except for Bellagio, where I found a show entrance, their buffet and restrooms to be in direct visibility line from each other. Pretty much everywhere else, you have to pass through a casino to get anywhere. Or through a row of very expensive shops. One way or another – you are watching either a mandatory display of some expensive brands or stimulated to put your money into a one-armed bandit. Now, that’s an effective advertising.

A lot of things change in Vegas very quickly. Two hotels are standing right where was simple nothing just two years ago – Wynn and Encore. As we walked down the Las Vegas Strip I saw at least four other buildings being built. There’s your real-estate crisis, right there. Not.

Everyone – from last cleaner in the casino all the way to the security at the McCarran Airport – is very nice and polite. In fact the only rude person I’ve met was some 300 miles east, at the Grand Canyon tourist center. And even then – it was 7am, so it could be just the morning rust.

Everything is aligned in such a way to help you effectively spend your money in the most convenient and pleasurable way. If there’s a line – it’s almost never to pay for something, it’s usually to get what you’ve paid for already. Sometimes cashiers are slow, it happens mostly because of all the language niceties they have to go through (sometimes I wondered if there are scripts they have to follow), but in large numbers they take care of that anyway.

If there is any luxury that will be in demand – expect to pay a premium price for it. If this is a “necessary” luxury – it would be complimentary. For example – parking in any casino on the strip is free. At the same time a single ride in monorail from one casino to another is a whopping $5.

And speaking of wedding itself – we found the chapel on the internet and the deciding factor was that right there on the first page there was a little video presentation with thorough explanation of all the chapel’s benefits. Plus – they have a live broadcast of the wedding ceremony over the internet, so I had friends all over the world watch it live. People who I could not afford to invite were there with me. It was amazing experience.

For those really interested – I will post a video on YouTube once I catch some sleep after this vacation.

Huh? How come? Hear me out, matey! During today’s lunch I went to both J & R and Staples – they are right across from each other in this part of town. There are plenty of sales representatives on the floor. However, whenever I enter J & R the most I get is a little longer then usual eye contact from one of the sales reps. As if he’s saying “Are you sure you don’t need any help? No? Okay, I’ll leave you alone”. Having a professional PC tech background I really appreciate such behavior. Besides, sometimes I just need to dive into the store and look around, touch things. Something I have been missing with the increasing role of web stores in my life.

When I enter Staples the picture gets totally different. Whenever in Staples I always get followed by one or another floor sales reps. They pretend to be adjusting things on the shelves and just pass by me (constantly) avoiding any eye contact whatsoever. Sometimes (probably) the bravest ones approach and ask if there’s anything I might need a help with. When they get my polite decline they still stick around like bad spies from the bad spy movie.

So, today, when I got into Staples, I was immediately followed by yet another sales person. He wasn’t afraid to make eye contact, so I rewarded him with couple of requests of things I was looking for (namely Microsoft Explorer Mouse and specific Fellowes CD tray/shelf that seem to be discontinued). Given that Staples didn’t have neither of things, I thanked and walked out. Perhaps if I wasn’t annoyed that much, I might have spent a little more time in the store and actually bought something (I’ve been known for spontaneous purchases of wired Logitech mice and blank CDs).

Such an experience at Staples has generally made it very undesireable for me to visit their stores. There are still some things that I prefer to buy “live” instead of just ordering them online, but Staples increasingly have made it difficult to indulge.

Given that my supply of stationary hasn’t changed much for last year and half, by the time I will need to visit Staples again – they might be already out of business.